Category: Riffs

I’ve been thinking a lot about brand marketing, brands, and the concept of personal (or professional) brands. In the past, I’ve ignored branding and brand marketing because I didn’t think I was creative enough to be involved with it. Now I’m starting to realize that branding isn’t about being witty and creative in that way. It’s about crafting a story in a way to shape people’s perception of your products or services. It’s like a guiding hand in helping them form their own stories about your brand. It’s why storytelling is such a valuable skill to have and to practice. …

Making the Most of Each Day? Are we really making the most of each day? When you hear someone say that, what does it even mean? Does it mean we’re effectively utilizing every minute of each day? Or, does it mean have we properly prioritized the things in our life and then focusing our energy on getting the highest priority things done? Or, does it mean if we had a chance to take a break that we didn’t take because that would mean we’re ‘lazy’ or unfocused? Does it mean we sat at our desk for 8 straight hours today …

It’s been nearly a year since I spun up my site The Winding Road to talk about careers. I didn’t quite know exactly what I was going to talk about but I knew it would have something to do with our careers and the non-linear trajectory that’s the reality for so many of us. One of the first things I wrote about was fear. Little did I know that fear would be such a prevalent feeling or so many of us a year later and not only as it relates to our careers and willingness to try new things, but …

Who’s it for? That’s what was on my mind as I was running this morning. This is an important element of any marketing strategy or campaign. I’ve always thought of it as complementary to the question of “what’s it for?” Usually putting more emphasis on the latter question, probably because it’s usually easier to figure out. That’s what I’ve done with the writing and content creation I’ve been focused on over the past year. This is on my mind because I don’t think it just applies to my content or marketing projects. It applies to nearly everything we do. It’s …

We’re our own harshest critic. That’s a fact. Sometimes the criticism is more stinging than at other times. Sometimes we brush it off, but usually, that’s when the stakes are low. The higher the stakes, the bigger the critic. If we’re stretching our capabilities, learning something new, the nasty critic will show up again. Always trying to talk us out of whatever it is we’re doing. It’s a big reason people don’t learn new things – adults at least. We’re afraid to look like a failure at something we’ve never done and have zero experience doing. Think about that for …

I’ve been wracking my brain over the past week about how I can help people during this time of crisis. I’m fortunate to have a job and work for a company that is in a good financial position to weather this storm- at least for some time. As I hear about those who have gone from a seemingly secure job to no job overnight, I can’t help but think about how difficult that has to be. It seems as though more companies are laying people off than are hiring, but that doesn’t mean you have to stop trying, give up, …

As I was on my daily walk this morning, something that Erica Larson said during our recent sit down for the podcast had stuck with me. She said that studies have shown that men tend to apply more often to roles in which they may only meet 60% of the job’s requirements. As I pondered that, I also thought about the gripes I hear from candidates about the lack of feedback or the automated emails they receive after applying. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty to fix there, but there’s more to the story from the other side. Understanding this …

While on this morning’s walk I had a thought about perceptions. How we, in an instant, will make a judgment about what we see someone doing when we really have no idea. Have a listen to my short riff on what happened. Photo by James Sutton on Unsplash

“The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same.” – Colin R. Davis One thing that is certain is there is no map for your life. No one can tell you how to get from point A to point B when it comes to success and happiness. Everyone’s situation is different. Understanding that you can seek guidance from others but not a set of instructions on how to get to the place you seek to be can be liberating. The key is to take bits of other people’s ideas and use them …

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